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Constituent Assembly Members

B. R. Ambedkar

1891 - 1956

Key Information

Party: Indian National Congress , Scheduled Caste Federation

Constituency: West Bengal , Bombay

Religion: Buddhist

Caste: Scheduled Caste

Gender: Male

Mother Tongue: Marathi

Education: Doctorate

Committee Memberships

• Key Speeches

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in the Mhow Army Cantonment, Central Provinces (present-day Madhya Pradesh) to a Dalit family. His family’s low caste status resulted in his early life being marked by discrimination, segregation and untouchability.

Ambedkar’s academic life was prolific. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Elphinstone College , a Master’s degree from Columbia University in economics, a doctoral degree from the University of London in 1923, and another doctoral degree from Columbia University in 1927.

Ambedkar’s higher education in the USA had been sponsored by the Maharaja of Baroda, therefore he was obligated to return and serve under the Princely State. He joined the Accountant-General’s Office in Baroda in 1918, but he was forced to leave in only 11 days as he was unable to find any permanent place of residency due to his caste identity.

Role in India’s Independence Movement

Ambedkar’s role in the independence struggle was complex. Unlike the dominant political discourse that focused on persuading the British to cede greater power to Indians, and to eventually leave India, Ambedkar’s interventions and advocacy centred more around the protection and furtherance of Dalit rights. As a result, he often clashed with the Indian National Congress.

He worked towards putting in place political safeguards for untouchables, the first of which was his presentation to the Southborough Committee that was preparing the Government of India Act 1919. By the time of the Round Table Conferences in the early 1930s, he had become the preeminent leader of the Dalit community.

Here, he argued fervently for separate electorates for the ‘backward classes’, believing that this was necessary to transform them into a solid political interest group. But M.K. Gandhi felt that this would splinter the Hindu community, going on a fast unto death to reverse the British acceptance of Ambedkar’s demands. Consequently, Ambedkar had to give in under the Poona Pact of 1932, giving up separate electorates in exchange for reserved seats in provincial assemblies.

Ambedkar also played a key role in social movements that fought for the rights of Dalits. In 1924, he founded the ‘ Bahishkrit Hitakarani Sabha ‘ for the social upliftment of the ‘depressed classes’ with the motto: “Educate, Agitate, Organise”. In 1927, a Depressed Classes Conference was organised at Mahad, located in Raigad district. Here, Ambedkar led a historic protest that culminated in a large group of Dalits drinking water from a public tank, breaking repressive social and physical norms that had existed for centuries.

A few months later, he organised a public burning of the Manusmriti at the same place. This ancient Hindu law book was the most well known among several such scriptures which placed cruel social and legal constraints on the ‘untouchables’. The burning was a strong statement against the centuries old discrimination and repression faced by the Dalits.

Ambedkar was also a nominated member of the Bombay Legislative Council form 1926-34. He founded the Independent Labour Party of India in 1936 after the Government of India Act 1935 introduced responsible government at the provincial level. The party was able to win 15 of the 17 seats it contested in the Bombay Assembly elections of 1937. He then founded the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942 as a popular political front for the Dalits.

Contribution to Constitution Making

The Indian Constitution and its drafting process are often seen as synonymous with Ambedkar. He is often referred to as the father of the Indian Constitution, and is probably the most well-known of all Constituent Assembly members.

Ambedkar became a key figure in India’s constitution-making process due to the offices he held and his interventions and speeches in the Assembly. He was the Chairman of the Assembly’s most crucial committee – the Drafting Committee and a member of other important Committees. As its Chairman, he had to defend the Draft Constitution which the Committee prepared, and therefore intervened in nearly every debate.

On behalf of the Scheduled Caste Federation party, Ambedkar wrote and submitted States and Minorities to the Constituent Assembly’s Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights . A mini-Constitution in itself, States and Minorities framed strong constitutional protection for the Scheduled Caste community.

Ambedkar’s interventions and speeches, on various aspects of the Constitution, were insightful, well-reasoned and scrupulously researched. This won him the support and respect of other members of the Assembly, who appreciated his leadership of the constitution-making project.

Later Contributions

Ambedkar was appointed as the first Law Minister of independent India in 1947. His most important intervention in this role was in the attempt to pass the Hindu Code Bill, to reform Hindu personal laws that dictated matters like marriage, divorce, succession and adoption. The Bill faced intense criticism from both within Parliament and outside. Ultimately the Government relented and withdrew the Bill, forcing Ambedkar to resign in frustration in 1951.

As a Scheduled Caste Federation party candidate, Ambedkar contested in India’s first general elections in 1952 from Bombay North Central constituency. The elections, dubbed as ‘the biggest experiment in democracy in human history’ by Sukumar Sen (then Election Commissioner) saw Ambedkar finish fourth in the race – an unknown candidate from the Congress party took home the seat. Despite his loss in the Lok Sabha elections, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha.

In 1956, Ambedkar along with 3,65,000 supporters converted to Buddhism, after having devoted several years to studying the religion. Ambedkar’s re-invention of Buddhism in the language of social justice is popularly referred to popularly as Dalit Buddhist movement, Navayana, or Neo-Buddhism.

In the later years of his life, his health worsened, and he passed away on 6 December 1956 in his sleep at his home in Delhi. His birth date is celebrated as ‘Ambedkar Jayanti’ in the form of a public holiday. He was posthumously given the Bharat Ratna in 1991.

Key Writings

Dr Ambedkar wrote several books in his lifetime. He wrote three books on economics – “ A dministration and Finance of the East India Company “; “ The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India “; and “ The Problem of the Rupee: Its Origin and Its Solution “.  “ The Annihilation of Caste “ , based on a speech he was supposed to give, is considered one of the most authoritative works on Dalit life and politics till date. His other writings include “ What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables “, and “ Pakistan or the Partition of India “. The Ministry of External Affairs has also published his entire collection of written works and speeches in 17 volumes.

• When Ambedkar introduced the Draft Constitution on 4 November 1948 to the Assembly, he defended the inclusion of administrative provisions in the Draft by invoking ‘constitutional morality’.
• On 25 November 1949, a day before the Constitution was adopted, Ambedkar vehemently argued that India must strive to be a social democracy and not merely a political democracy. Social democracy, he noted ‘ is a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life ’.
• While defending the inclusion of Directive principles of State Policy in the Draft Constitution, he argued that while the principles did not have force in law, they were binding. He believed that they were like instructions regulating the power of the Legislature and Executive for peace, order and good government. He also felt that periodic elections would enforce these principles as legislators would be accountable to the people of India.
• On the issue of centralisation of power, Ambedkar clarified that the fundamental principle of federalism is the division of Legislative and Executive powers between the Union and the States in the Constitution. He reassured that the States were in no way dependent upon the Union government for their legislative or executive powers and that the Union and States were co-equals.
• Ambedkar stated that in choosing a parliamentary system of governance, the Indian constitution has prioritised responsibility and accountability over stability.
• Ambedkar’s World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement  by Eleanor Zelliot (Navayana, 2012).
• The Radical in Ambedkar: Critical Reflections  by Anand Teltumbde (Penguin Allen Lane, 2018)
• No Laughing Matter : The Ambedkar Cartoons, 1932–1956  by Unnamati Syama Sundar (Navayana, 2019)
• Writings and Speeches of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar  (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India)
• Ambedkar-Towards An Enlightened India  By Gail Omvedt (Penguin, 2008)
• Dr. Ambedkar-Life and Mission  by Dhananjay Keer (Popular Prakashan, 1954)
• Deconstructing Ambedkar  by Anand Teltumbde (Economic and Political Weekly, 2015)
• Waiting for a Visa by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (Govt. of Maharashtra, 1993)

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Article Contents

1.introduction, 2.the constitution and historical imagination, 3.time: founding moments, serialized epics, and everyday postscripts, 4.liberalism with indian characteristics: individuals and communities, 5.conclusion: freedom, discipline, and the paths not taken.

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The Indian Constitution: Moments, epics and everyday lives

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Rohit De, The Indian Constitution: Moments, epics and everyday lives, International Journal of Constitutional Law , Volume 18, Issue 3, October 2020, Pages 1022–1030, https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moaa077

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I submit that a Constituent Assembly not only frames a constitution, but also gives people a new framework of life. Dakshayani Velayudhan, Dec. 9, 1946, in 1 Constituent Assembly of India Debates

January 26, 2020 marked the seventieth anniversary of the Indian Constitution. Official celebrations focused on memorializing the “fundamental duties” of the citizen in the constitution that range from “respecting public property and adjuring violence” to “respecting the national flag and national anthem.” In striking contrast, hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens gathered in the streets protesting the changes to the citizenship law by affirming constitutional values of equality, liberty, fraternity, and justice through public recitations of the preamble. 1 The current government-led crisis of the Indian constitutional system has been described as “death of the constitution by a thousand cuts” 2 and is being met with an exceptional resilience of constitutional patriotism from ordinary citizens. Perhaps for the first time since its promulgation, the Constitution is being reflected in popular culture and celebrated in film, song, and poetry. 3

Taking stock on the sixtieth anniversary of the Indian Constitution, political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta noted that constitutions, “not only allocate authority, define the limits of power or enunciate values, they also constitute our sense of history and shape a sense of self,” but despite the centrality of the Constitution to Indian social and political life, it remained “ill served by our historical imagination.” 4 In contrast, the last decade has witnessed an efflorescence of historically inflected writing, both scholarly and popular, on the Indian constitution. 5 Madhav Khosla, Ornit Shani, and myself recognize, in our respective work, that the promulgation of the Indian Constitution was a transformative moment for democracy in India, and is a resource for theorizing democracy more generally. As all three authors emphasize, this shared assumption marks a break from Indian scholarship, which saw the Constitution as a “superstructure” or as incidental to Indian politics; it is also a break from Western political theory which viewed the constitution as derivative and the Indian democratic experience at best as an anomaly. For Khosla, the Indian constitution is the “paradigmatic democratic experience in the 20th century, in much the same way in which Tocqueville’s America was for the 19th century.” 6 Ornit Shani notes that the Indian experience of universal adult franchise, irrespective of qualifications, predated not just the postcolonial world, but also the United States and France. I point out that the imbrication of constitution into daily life and the judicialization of politics have a considerably longer history in India than in most of the world. 7 Liberalism, democracy, industrialization, and social equality might have emerged sequentially in the west, but the Indian republic sought to achieve all goals simultaneously.

While differing in their emphasis on the process of change, the three books complement each other. Khosla excavates a shared constitutional vision at the moment of founding that makes visible the political apparatus of democratization, i.e. the codification and explication of rules as a pedagogical project, the emergence of a centralized overarching state, and focusing on the individual as the unit of representation. Shani argues that it was “practical rather than ideological steps,” through the bureaucratic task of implementing universal franchise, that “transformed the meaning of social existence in India” and laid the groundwork of electoral politics. 8 My work documents the use of constitutional remedies in courts and the emergence of constitutional rhetoric on the streets by ordinary people, arguing that the constitutional order was not a gift by enlightened politicians or benevolent judges but was produced and reproduced in everyday encounters by ordinary citizens. 9 Despite the text of the Indian Constitution reproducing several features of colonial legislation, and the institutions of the police, army, bureaucracy, and judiciary continuing with the same personnel and practices, all three authors rebut the idea that the Indian Constitution is an inevitable outgrowth of the colonial legal and bureaucratic frameworks. 10 Khosla distinguishes constitutional codification from colonial projects of codification, arguing that rights were marginal to the nationalist movement and colonial debates over representation were focused on group/communal identities. 11 Shani demonstrates how colonial bureaucrats, when tasked with expanding franchise even minimally, showed reluctance to enfranchise voters, shunned publicity, and found a range of administrative objections to expanding the voter’s list. In contrast, from 1948 onwards, in anticipation of changing legal authorities, the bureaucrats devised new precedents, overcame procedural hurdles, and actively publicized the process of turning citizens into voters. 12 I show how the judicial constitutional remedies in the new constitution gave Indian courts wide powers of judicial review and empowered citizens with the tactics and language to challenge a previously unimaginable range of governmental action both in the courts and on the streets. All three authors forcefully rebut the challenge to demographic non-representativeness (the unelected and largely upper caste Assembly members, the colonial bureaucracy, civil society groups, and litigants) by showing how the processes of constitution writing, electoral registration, and constitutional litigation opened up fields of action for the larger population by rewiring vocabularies, political imaginations, and expectations.

Along with these shared and complementary visions, these three books represent a heterogeneity of methods, archives and causality and offer different (and occasionally contradictory) answers to the nature of India’s constitutional experiment.

Between December 1946 and November 1949, over 300 members of the Indian Constituent Assembly met and deliberated over a constitutional draft in Delhi. For Khosla, this is a distinct moment of founding when “India’s political elite converged on a set of liberal constitutional values without the inheritance of any major liberal traditions.” 13 Khosla rejects not only arguments of colonial continuity, but also claims that these were products of a self-interested compromise over a transfer of power or that they were rooted in a long history of Indian liberal (and radical) thought. 14 While these claims can be contested, Khosla’s maneuver separates a future-oriented “constitutional moment” from everyday politics, allowing for a focus on the ideas themselves without reducing it to contingent maneuvering of interest groups. For instance, he shows how Nehru and Ambedkar, despite differing on their understanding of social and economic needs, came together in adopting a centralized state as the instrument of power for social and economic transformation and freedom, despite two decades of debates over provincial autonomy and village government. 15 One of the strengths of Khosla’s work is his deftness in placing the Indian debates on franchise, representation, and citizenship within the canon of political theory. Khosla’s narrative stops with the promulgation of the constitutional text by the Constituent Assembly, but he notes that the framework did not “exhaust its democratic character and carry the full weight of legitimation.” 16 The provision of universal adult suffrage and ease of constitutional amendment through constitutionally prescribed forms allowed for a democratic sovereignty in the future. Khosla suggests that the ease of amending the Indian Constitution through future parliaments was in recognition of the unelected nature of the Assembly and the absence of a process of ratification. 17 However, the first amendments to the Indian Constitution, circumscribing the rights to free speech and property and nullifying judicial verdicts, were made by the unelected Constituent Assembly in 1951. 18 According to Khosla, at the birth of the Indian republic, people were yet to transition from subjecthood to citizenship, but would do so through a democratic constitution. 19

In contrast, Ornit Shani argues that Indians became voters, and democratic subjects, before they became citizens. Shani focuses on the making of the Indian electorate through the preparation of the first draft electoral roll in anticipation of the Indian constitution. Moving away from the “ivory tower” of the Constituent Assembly, Shani shows how the “institution of electoral democracy,” which preceded the constitutional deliberations by politicians, was the product of a dialog between professional bureaucrats and ordinary people. She argues that it was the institutionalization of procedural equality in a deeply hierarchical society ahead of the constitution that made India’s democracy legible and legitimate to its people. 20 Shani’s archive is the little studied Secretariat of the Constituent Assembly, which was tasked with preparing an electoral roll for the new republic and bureaucratized the idea of equality for the purpose of voting.

As the deliberations began in the Constituent Assembly in 1946, both the territory of the future republic and the people who would constitute it remained undefined. The decision to partition British India into two states led to the greatest human displacement in history, resulting in the migration of 15 million people and millions of deaths. A patchwork of semi-autonomous princely states made up a third of the territory in South Asia, and their sovereigns continued to negotiate the status of their territories and subjects within the Indian union even after the promulgation of the Constitution. 21 The shifting populations and boundaries complicated the process of creating a list of voters and generated struggles for citizenship that were informed by the constitution being drafted and led to changes in the draft provisions. Shani reads the press notes issued by the Secretariat, the ensuing discussions in press, and the letters from the public as a “serialized epic of democracy” which allowed ordinary people to insert themselves as protagonists and “contribut[e] to the democratization of feelings and imagination.” 22 Similarly, administrative debates about funding and preparing a national electoral roll welded together 600 jurisdictions into a democratic federal structure and forged a common idea of Indianness. Most strikingly, Shani charts the transformation of a colonial bureaucratic imagination into one with an unprecedented “measure and tenacity of inclusion,” with state officials registering refugees in camps, homeless people, women in seclusion, and people living in remote areas. Through this new inclusive process they transform and democratize forms and procedures of democratic participation. The production of an electoral roll of 170 million people supported the notion that sovereignty resided in people with actual names and addresses (even though it might record that so-and-so slept under a tree), rather than being a faceless entity. Shani’s key intervention is to show that ordinary people did not react to the constitution-making process, but that constitution-making and everyday struggles were co-constitutive processes. For instance, she shows how the provisions on a centralized electoral commission and the principle of non-discrimination over place of birth emerged through struggles of internal migrants trying to get themselves into the electoral roll before the constitution was completed.

While Khosla’s narrative ends with the promulgation of the Constitution, and Shani’s runs parallel to the process of constitutional drafting, mine seeks to show how the Constitution after its promulgation “came so alive in popular imagination that ordinary people attributed meaning to its existence, took recourse through it and argued with it.” 23 What happens after the overarching centralized state with ambitions to restructure society and economy through codified rules, as Khosla describes, begins to intervene in everyday life? How do people who are not included in the electoral rolls or, more commonly, unable to protect their interests electorally, protect themselves? I argue that, almost as soon as it is promulgated, the Indian Constitution begins to operate as an organizational assumption for citizens and a background threat to the state through processes driven by some of its most marginal citizens. 24 I show this by looking at the use of the new constitutional remedies against attempts to transform the daily life of citizens, be it food practices, drinking habits, shopping, or sexual behavior. 25 While the book draws on judicial records, the central figure is not the judge but the litigant, who was able to insert themselves into an elite conversation and compel the state to respond. In contrast to the “serialized press notes” discussed by Shani, the site of encounter was not chosen by the state, and bureaucrats and politicians (including the constitution founders) are surprised and exasperated when being asked to abide by constitutional procedure. This point was acutely made when Durgabai Deshmukh, a liberal lawyer and constitutional drafter, faced with sex workers asserting their right to practice their profession, demanded that the constitution be amended to exclude them and that “notions of freedom undergo a change.” 26 It is clear that neither judges nor politicians exercise a monopoly on constitutional meaning, as ordinary Indians persist in their claims even after a judicial negation, or in anticipation of constitutional change. Like Shani, I draw inspiration from Robert Cover in recognizing that constitutions exist in a normative universe constructed by the “force of interpretive commitments, some small and private, others immense and public” and seek to bring the smaller actors to light. 27 Despite the centrality of the judicial archive, it was clear that judges did not control the final meaning of the constitution, as groups held onto constitutional interpretations and advanced claims counter to judicial visions.

In one of his final speeches to the Constituent Assembly, Dr Ambedkar worried that “democracy in India was only top dressing on a deeply undemocratic society.” 28 Not only was Ambedkar intimately familiar with the exclusions and violence of a caste society, he had also led two decades of negotiations with both the British and the Congress Party to create a more inclusive playing field but to little avail. How did the constitutional order provide a way for a more democratic society? Khosla gives the clearest answer to this question by suggesting the constitution centered on the individual in exclusion of other identities as the unit of representation, as demonstrated by dropping communal electorates based on religion. He suggests that even the constitutionally mandated special provisions made available to Dalit and tribal communities are framed on the “social and educational backwardness of a group,” which might have applied to certain castes at the time of independence, but were not innate to the group’s conditions. 29 His approach highlights the limitations of reading the Constitution as a document of shared consensus. The Constitution drafters, particularly women and Dalit members, were acutely aware of deep-seated inequalities in society and sought to harness state instruments to transform it. Central to this was an awareness that formal equality was not only insufficient but also dangerous, in that it could be used to hamper the state’s efforts to ameliorate social conditions. 30

The withdrawal of demands for communal representation and the disaggregation of caste and religious minorities are more a product of political machinations in the assembly than a commitment to liberalism. 31 There were only two Muslim members in the Assembly until June of 1947, when the Muslim League members took their seats. As several scholars have shown, the members of the League were outnumbered, had their loyalties and credibility attacked, and were outmaneuvered in committee meetings. 32 Aditya Nigam suggests that reading the constituent assembly debates as an event rather than a text makes visible how within the assembly the “liberal abstract notion of unmarked citizenship” was deployed in a desire for homogeneity rather than democracy and often silenced the articulation of a community-based grievance. 33

Shani’s work also focuses on the production of an unmarked procedurally equal citizenship, but her archive foregrounds the close relationship between community identity and the paradigmatic form of individual representation. The process of bureaucratic enumeration comes dazzlingly alive through the letters and public engagement that the constituent assembly are flooded with. While some are from individuals, a majority seem to come from a range of identity-based associations (a hybrid between traditional caste organizations and modern civil society groups) and, in expanding their liberal unmarked right to franchise, they make claims that are based on group identities. Take, for instance, the Assam Citizen’s Association Dhubri, which attempted to secure the voting rights of refugees, but lobbied to remove the constitutional restrictions preventing them from buying tribal land and pushed for state aid to support minority-run educational institutions. 34 The mobilization for individual representation was facilitated by community organizations. As Shani points out, some communities were unable to represent themselves, and tribal areas in Northeast and Central India, the Andamans, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir were not given the direct franchise. 35

Group identities entered my book in unexpected ways. As I tabulated challenges to particular laws, I noticed a clustering of petitions by individuals belonging to the same community, even in cases that were seemingly unconnected to ascriptive identities, such as commodity controls. It soon became apparent that in caste society, ascriptive identities and economic structures were closely linked, and the ability to litigate was greatest for those with access to informational networks or resources through community organizations. In many instances, what appeared to be claims for individual rights such as the right to drink, on closer examination seemed to be have been funded or organized by a community whose economic interests had been affected. As the archive made clear, not all communities in the 1950s had equal access to litigation, with landless laborers and Dalits , who made up a substantial portion of the population, being underrepresented. However, the acts of litigious citizens opened up pathways of rights for others less able to litigate and caused state officials to anticipate challenges and take constitutional norms as “organizational assumptions” to be followed or evaded. 36 Liberal theory treats liberty, property, and community as separate concepts, but in the Indian case they seem to be inextricably linked to constitutional design.

Despite these limitations and differences, all three authors agree that the Indian constitutional experiment was unprecedented for the time and in terms of its success. The two contemporaneous constituent assemblies in Pakistan and Israel were unable to agree upon a constitutional document, and neither has had the same degree of longevity or popular support. The longevity of the Indian Constituent Assembly is tied both to promise of the constitution and its framework of disciplining politics. For instance, attempts to challenge either the codification of rules or the overarching centralizing state were defended with a range of instruments within the constitution, from the provision of emergency to preventive detention laws. 37 While elections and electoral participation were celebrated, state elites were invested in using elections to discipline politics, curbing other forms of civic protest, and to thwart political engagement that had developed during the national movement. 38 Judicial victories were rare, narrow, and often reversed; moreover, the litigator was frequently castigated as a representative of a “private interest” against “national interest,” and the most effective strategies were where the litigant could, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, frame their private interest as a general one. 39 As John Dunne notes, the globalization of representative democracy rooted in a bureaucratic statist structure erases more radical alternatives. 40

Given that the triad of features that our books identify and theorize faces increasing challenges in India, one direction for the emerging scholarship on the Indian Constitution is to explore the paths not taken. Kalyani Ramnath, for instance, suggests that the range of disparate opinions within the Constituent Assembly presents an opportunity to examine the different ways in which the constitutional text and polity could have been structured. 41 Khosla engages at some length with the Gandhian genealogy of thinking state power, but there remain other alternatives, including the federal proposals from the Dravidian parties and the princely states, Ambedkar’s radical economic plans including land nationalization, or the more robust imagination of fundamental rights in the Karachi Charter of 1932. Upendra Baxi describes constitutionalism in a threefold way: (i) as a corpus of texts signaling the original intention to fashion a new political formation that seeks to write society through law; (ii) as a set of ongoing interpretive practices within an authoritative community (be it bureaucrats, lawyers, or judges); and (iii) as a site for articulating insurgent orders of expectations from the state. 42 As we look towards the next decade of scholarship on the Indian Constitution, one hopes to see the recovery of more voices, imaginations, archives, and strategies covering the breadth of Baxi’s definitions of constitutionalism.

Rohit De & Surabhi Ranganathan, We are Witnessing the Rediscovery of India’s Republic , N.Y. Times (Dec. 27, 2019), https://nyti.ms/3iAyfeo .

Tarunabh Khaitan, Killing a Constitution by a Thousand Cuts: Executive Aggrandizement and Party-State Fusion in India , 14 Law & Ethics Hum. Rts . 49 (2020).

Suanshu Khurana, Ekkta Malik & Tanushree Ghosh, Poets, Singers and Writers on what the Constitution Means to Them in Letter and Spirit , Indian Express (Jan. 6, 2020), https://bit.ly/3c0qWKB; Article 15 ( Zee Studios, 2018).

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, What is Constitutional Morality? , 615 Seminar India ( Nov. 2010), https://bit.ly/3hyADkL .

This selection of monographs reflects both an interest in constitutional founding as well as constitutional narration for both legal and lay publics. On the constituent assembly and the moment of founding, see Gautam Bhatia, The Transformative Constitution: A Radical Biography in Nine Acts (2019) ; Arvind Elangovan, Norms and Politics: Sir Benegal Narsimha Rau and the Making of the Indian Constitution (1935–1950) (2019); The Indian Constituent Assembly: Deliberations on Democracy ( Udit Bhatia ed., 2017); Akash Singh Rathore, Ambedkar’s Preamble: A Secret History of the Constitution of India (2020); Sandipto Dasgupta, Legalizing the Revolution: Decolonization and Constitutionalism in the 20th Century (2020); Niraja Gopal Jayal, Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History (2013) . On narrating constitutional jurisprudence, see Chitranshul Sinha, The Great Repression: The Story of Sedition in India (2019); Abhinav Chandrachud, A Republic of Rhetoric: Free Speech and the Constitution of India (2017); Anuj Bhuwania, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India (2017); Gautam Bhatia, Offend, Shock and Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution (2016); Pooja Parmar, Indigenity and Legal Pluralism in India: Claims, Histories and Meanings (2015), Kalpana Kannibiran, Tools of Justice: Non Discrimination and the Indian Constitution (2012). For an analytical overview, see Arun Kumar Thiruvengadam, The Indian Constitution: A Contextual Analysis (2018).

Madhav Khosla , India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy 6 (2020).

Rohit De, A People’s Constitution: The Everyday Life of the Law in the Indian Republic 4 (2018).

Ornit Shani, How India Became Democratic? Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise 5 (2019).

De , supra note 7, at 3.

On the colonial constitutionalism argument, see Rannabir Sammadar, The Materiality of Politics: The Technologies of Rule (vol. 1) (2007); Sumit Sarkar, Indian Democracy: The Historical Inheritance , in The Success of India’s Democracy 21 (Atul Kohli ed ., 2001); Anil Kalhan, Constitution and “Extraconstitution , ” in Colonial Emergency Regimes in Postcolonial India and Pakistan 89–120 (Victor Ramraj & Arun K. Thiruvengadam eds., 2010).

Khosla , supra note 6. On the way the postcolonial legal order has attempted to integrate its colonial past, see Rahela Khorakiwala, From the Colonial to the Contemporary: Images, Iconography and Performances of Law in India’s High Courts (2019); Rohit De, Between Midnight and Republic: Theory and Practice of India’s Dominion Status , 17 Int’l J. Const. L. 1213 (2019).

Shani , supra note 8, at 32–51.

Khosla , supra note 6, at 18. Moving away from quantitative and game theory models for constitutional success, Khosla’s book is part of an emerging field of interest in Asian constitutional foundations. See Constitutional Foundings in South Asia (Kevin Yl Tan & Ridwan Ul Hoque eds., 2021); The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice (Asanga Welikala ed., 2012); Maryam Khan, What’s in a Founding? Founding Moments and Pakistan’s “Permanent Constitution” of 1973 , in Founding Moments in Constitutionalism 201–21 (Richard Albert, Nischal Basnyet & Menaka Guruswamy eds., 2020); Constitution-Making in Asia: Decolonisation and State-Building in the Aftermath of the British Empire (Harshan Kumarasingham ed., 2016).

For an example of the compromise model of constitution making in British colonies, see Charles Parkinson, Bill of Rights and Decolonization: The Emergence of Domestic Human Rights Instruments in Britain’s Overseas Territories (2007). For arguments identifying antecedents of the Indian Constitution in Indian intellectual history, see Christopher Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (2011); Sukanya Bannerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late Victorian Empire (2013) ; Elangovan, supra note 5; Jayal, supra note 5; Mithi Mukherjee, India in the Shadows of Empire: A Legal and Political History (1757–1950) (2009) . For an overview of radical or socialist antecedents to the Indian Constitution, see Rohit De, Constitutional Antecedents , in The Oxford Handbook to the Indian Constitution 17 ( Sujit Choudhary, Madhav Khosla, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta eds., 2015); Kama Maclean, The Fundamental Rights Resolution Nationalism, Internationalism, and Cosmopolitanism in an Interwar Moment , 37 Comp. Stud. S. Asia, Afr. & Middle E. 213 (2017). For a scalar lineage, see Stephen Legg, Dyarchy: Democracy, Autocracy, and the Scalar Sovereignty of Interwar India , 36 Comp. Stud. S. Asia, Afr. & Middle E. 44 (2016).

This builds on Uday Mehta’s argument that the Indian constitution, distinct from the American or French traditions, transforms power from “a traditional concern with establishing the conditions for freedom to a concern with sustaining life and its necessities”: see Uday S. Mehta, The Social Question and the Absolutism of Politics , 615 Seminar India ( Nov. 2010), https://bit.ly/2Rrq8oP . The Partition casts a shadow over these politics, with concerns of “fissiparous tendencies,” bringing those who would have preferred a more decentralized polity towards a consensus over a centralizing transformative state.

Khosla , supra note 6, at 156.

Khosla sets this up in contrast to the difficulty of constitutional amendments in the United States, which were promulgated after a widespread ratification process. See id . at 158.

Nivedita Menon, Citizenship and the Passive Revolution: Interpreting the First Amendment , Econ. & Pol. Weekly 1812 (2004); Arudra Burra, Freedom of Speech in the Early Constitution: A Study of the Constitution (First Amendment) Bill , in The Indian Constituent Assembly: Deliberations on Democracy , supra note 5, at 130.

Khosla , supra note 6, at 158.

Shani , supra note 8, at 5.

There were ninety-three seats reserved for representatives of princely states within the Assembly, though there was a lively debate about whether these members should be nominated by the prince or selected through popular representation. Several representatives took their seats well after the draft of the Constitution was finalized. The largest state, Hyderabad, was unrepresented in the Constituent Assembly, as it did not accede to India until after 1950. The princely states were also sites of experimentation for constitutional forms since the late nineteenth century: constitutionally mandated affirmative action was first introduced in Mysore in the early twentieth century; Aundh experimented with Gandhian decentralized government; and Manipur offered universal franchise and a stronger bill of rights. Given the possibility of joining an Indian union since the 1930s, the princely states had been debating various forms of federalism. The state of Jammu and Kashmir was the only state in the Indian union which was permitted to have its own constituent assembly and flag. On princely states, see Barbara Ramusack, The Indian Princes and Their States (2004); Manu Bhagavan, Princely States and the Making of Modern India: Internationalism, Constitutionalism and the Postcolonial Moment , 46 Indian Econ. & Soc. History Rev. 427 (2009). On Mysore and Baroda, see Manu Bhagavan, Soveriegn Spheres: Princes, Education and Empire in Colonial India (2003). On constitutional experiments in Baroda, see Rahul Sagar, How and Why the First Constitution in Modern India was Written , Scroll ( Jan. 19, 2020), https://bit.ly/3c7LAIY . On the Travancore Constitution, see Sarath Pillai, Fragmenting the Nation: Divisible Sovereignty and Travancore’s Quest for Federal Independence , 34 Law & History Rev. 743 (2016). On Hyderabad, see Kavita Saraswathi Datla, Sovereignty and the End of Empire: The Transition to Independence in Colonial Hyderabad , 3 Ab Imperio 63 (2018). On Manipur, see S. K. Bannerjee, Manipur State Constitution Act, 1947 , 19 Indian J. Pol. Sci. 35 (1958). On Aundh, see Indira Rothermund , The Aundh Experiment: A Gandhian Grass-roots Democracy (1983).

De,   supra note 7, at 9.

Id. at 218.

I took a conscious decision to not look at more obviously political cases in this book. I discuss them in Rohit De, Rebellion, Dacoity, and Equality: The Emergence of the Constitutional Field in Postcolonial India , 34 Comp. Stud. S. Asia, Afr. & Middle E. 260 (2014). See also Rohit De, How to Write Constitutional Histories: The Constitution of Everyday Life , Asian J. Comp. L. ( forthcoming 2020).

Letter from Durgabai Deshmukh, Member, Planning Commission and Chairperson Central Social Welfare Board, to Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India (Sept. 7, 1954) (on file with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library).

Robert M. Cover, Foreword: Nomos and Narrative , 97 Harv. L. Rev . 4 (1983).

B. R. Ambedkar, Nov. 4, 1948, in 7 Constituent Assembly of India Debates , https://bit.ly/33EZ4co (last visited Oct. 1, 2020).

Khosla , supra note 6, at 150.

Bhatia, The Transformative Constitution: A Radical Biography in Nine Acts,   supra note 5 ; Kalpana Kannabiran, Tools of Justice: Non-Discrimination and the Indian Constitution (2012). Significantly, India Const . art. 15 not only provides a nondiscrimination clause and protects special measures for women, children, and classes with certain social and educational markers, but also specifically casts a horizontal responsibility of non-discrimination upon fellow citizens by throwing open schools, wells, shops, temples, and private establishments that had been sites of caste exclusion. The Constitution also provided for the rights of linguistic and religious minorities, while specifically granting freedom to groups that had been unfree, by abolishing untouchability, human trafficking, and forced labor.

On the changing idea of minorities, see Anupama Rao , The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (2009); Faisal Devji, Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (2013). O n politics within the assembly, see Upendra Baxi, The Little Done, The Vast Undone: Some Reflections on Reading Granville Austin’s The Indian Constitution , 9 J. Indian L. Inst. 323 (1967).

Iqbal Ansari, The Politics of Constitution Making in India , in Minority Identities and the Nation State 113 (D. L. Sheth & Gurpreet Mahajan eds., 1999); Shefal Jhai, Rights Versus Representation: Defending Minority Interests in the Constituent Assembly , Econ. & Pol. Weekly 1579 (2003); Shefali Jha, Representation and its Epiphanies: A Reading of Constituent Assembly Debates , Econ. & Pol. Weekly 4357 (2004); Rochana Bajpai, The Conceptual Vocabularies of Secularism and Minority Rights in India , 7 J. Pol. Ideologies 179 (2002); Shabnum Tejani, The Necessary Conditions for Democracy: BR Ambedkar on Nationalism, Minorities and Pakistan , Econ. & Pol. Weekly 111 (2013).

Aditya Nigam, A Text Without Author: Locating Constituent Assembly as Event , Econ. & Pol. Weekly 2107 (2004).

Shani , supra note 8, at 176.

As Shani has shown elsewhere, Indian Muslims faced a more difficult time establishing citizenship and documents. See Ornit Shani, Conceptions of Citizenship in India and the “Muslim Question , ” 44 Mod. Asian Stud. 145 (2010). On the documentary burdens on Indian Muslims of partition, see Vazira Zamindar, The Long Partition: Refugees, Boundaries, Citizenship (2007).

For an illustration on how litigation by petty bureaucrats opened up possibilities for other groups, see Rohit De, A Republic of Petty Bureaucrats: Upendra Baxi and the Pathologies of Civil Service Jurisprudence , 9 Jindal Global L. Rev . 335 (2018).

Sandipto Dasgupta argues that the length and complexity of the Indian constitution are the result of an elite desire for legalism and procedural certainty to contain popular politics in the future, particularly over questions of property. See Sandipto Dasgupta, “A Language Which Is Foreign to Us”: Continuities and Anxieties in the Making of the Indian Constitution , 34 Comp. Stud. S. Asia, Afr. & Middle E. 228 (2014).

Dipesh Chakrabarty, “In the Name of Politics”: Democracy and the Power of the Multitude in India , 19 Pub. Culture 35 (2007).

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition 34 (1958).

John Dunne, Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy (2d ed. 2018) (I am grateful to Tejas Parashar for the reference).

Kalyani Ramnath, “We The People”: Seamless Webs and Social Revolution in India’s Constituent Assembly Debates , 32 S. Asia Res. 57 (2012).

Upendra Baxi, Outline of a Theory of Practice of Indian Constitutionalism , in Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution 92, 92–118 (Rajeev Bhargava ed., 2008).

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B R Ambedkar: 10 Facts You Probably Don’t Know About the Father of the Indian Constitution

Economist, educationist and the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, Ambedkar fought all his life to remove discrimination, degradation and deprivation from society. Here are little-known facts from his inspiring life.

T he importance of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar in Indian polity cannot be overstated. Economist, educationist and the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, Ambedkar fought all his life to remove discrimination, degradation and deprivation from the society.

Born on April 14, 1891, to parents Ramji Maloji Sakpal and Bhimabai Murbadkar Sakpal in Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, Ambedkar came from humble beginnings but he went on to become one of India’s greatest leaders.

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On his 126th birth anniversary, we bring to you 10 facts that you may not have known about him. They will help you see Baba Saheb’s legacy in a new light!

1. ambedkar’s original name was actually ambavadekar..

Ambedkar original surname was Ambavadekar (derived from the name of his native village ‘Ambavade’ in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra). It was his teacher, Mahadev Ambedkar who changed his surname from ‘Ambavadekar’ to his own surname ‘Ambedkar’ in school records as he was very fond of him.

2. Ambedkar was the first Indian to pursue a doctorate in economics abroad.

Not only in Ambedkar the first Indian to pursue an Economics doctorate degree abroad, he is also the first Ph.D in Economics and the first double doctorate holder in Economics in South Asia. He was also among the highest educated Indians of his generation.

During his three years at Columbia University, Ambedkar took twenty nine courses in economics, eleven in history, six in sociology, five in philosophy, four in anthropology, three in politics and one each in elementary French and German!

3. Ambedkar played a key role in establishment of Reserve Bank of India in 1935.

Reserve Bank of India was conceptualised according to the guidelines presented by Ambedkar to the Hilton Young Commission (also known as Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance) in his book, The Problem of the Rupee – Its Origin and Its Solution.

Ambedkar also knew that the problem of the rupee is eventually linked to the problem of domestic inflation. In the preface to the book version of his thesis, he pointed out: “…nothing will stabilize the rupee unless we stabilize its general purchasing power”.

4. The Mahad Satyagraha of 1927 was Ambedkar’s first important crusade.

The Mahad satyagraha of 1927 was one of the defining moments in Ambedkar’s political thought and action. Held in the small town of Mahad in Maharashtra, this satyagraha was held three years prior to Gandhi’s Dandi march. While salt was at the centre of Gandhi’s campaign, drinking water was at the core of Ambedkar’s crusade.

By leading a group of Dalits to drink water from Chavadar lake in Mahad, Ambedkar didn’t just assert the right of Dalits to take water from public water sources, he sowed the the seeds of Dalit emancipation. In his famous quote, he said,

“We are not going to the Chavadar Tank to merely drink its water. We are going to the tank to assert that we too are human beings like others. It must be clear that this meeting has been called to set up the norm of equality.”

5. Ambedkar changed the working hours in India from 14 hours to 8 hours.

As the member for labour in the viceroy’s council from 1942 to 1946, Dr Ambedkar was instrumental in bringing about several labour reforms. He changed the working hours from 12 hours to 8 hours in the 7th session of Indian Labour Conference in New Delhi in November 1942.

He also introduced several measures for workers like dearness allowance, leave benefit, employee insurance, medical leave, equal pay for equal work, minimum wages and periodic revision of scale of pay. He also strengthened trade unions and established employment exchanges across India.

6. Ambedkar’s autobiography is used as a textbook in the Columbia University.

A 20-page autobiographical story written by Ambedkar in 1935-36 (after his return from America and Europe), Waiting for a Visa is a book that   draws from his experiences with untouchability, starting from his childhood. The book is used as a textbook in the Columbia University.

7. Ambedkar had opposed Article 370 of the Indian constitution

With members of the Drafting Committee

Ambedkar refused to draft Article 370 of the constitution (which gives special status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir) on the grounds that it was discriminatory and against the principles of unity and integrity of the nation. Article 370 was eventually drafted by Gopalswamy Ayyangar, former Diwan to Maharajah Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir.

8. Ambedkar fought for three years to get the comprehensive Hindu Code Bill passed which gave several important rights to women.

Ambedkar resigned from his post of the first law minister of India when the comprehensive Hindu Code Bill was dropped by the Indian parliament. The bill had two main purposes – first, to elevate the social status of Hindu women by giving them their due rights and second, to abrogate social disparities and caste inequalities.

Some of the key features of this bill were:

• Women could now inherit family property, permitting divorce and adoption of girls
• The code gave both men and women the right to divorce if the marriage was untenable.
• Widows and divorcees were given the right to remarry.
• Polygamy was outlawed
• Intercaste marriage and adoption of children of any caste would be permitted.

A staunch supporter of women’s rights, Ambedkar also said,

“I measure the progress of community by the degree of progress which women had achieved. Let every girl who marries stand by her husband, claim to be her husband’s friend and equal, and refuse to be his slave. I am sure if you follow this advice, you will bring honour and glory to yourselves.”

9. Ambedkar was the first to suggest the division of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh

In his book (published in 1995), Thoughts on Linguistic States , Ambedkar suggested splitting Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. A good 45 years after he originally wrote the book, the split finally came with the formation of Jharkhand out of Bihar and Chhattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh in the year 2000.

On splitting one-language states, he wrote in the book: “The number of pieces into which a state with people speaking one language should be divided into should depend upon (1) the requirements of efficient administration, (2) the needs of the different areas, (3) the sentiments of the different areas, and (4) the proportion between the majority and minority.”

10. Ambedkar’s efforts were pioneering in the development of India’s national policy for water and electricity

Ambedkar handing over the final draft of the constitution to President Rajendra Prasad on November 26, 1949

The pioneer of multipurpose river valley projects in India, Ambedkar initiated the Damodar Valley project, the Bhakra Nangal Dam project, the Son River Valley project and Hirakud dam project. He also established the Central Water Commission to facilitate the development of irrigation projects at both the Central and the state level.

To spark the development of India’s power sector, Ambedkar also established the Central Technical Power Board (CTPB) and Central Electricity Authority to explore the potential of and establish hydel and thermal power stations. He also emphasized on the need for a grid system (which India still relies on) and well-trained electrical engineers in India.

Also Read :  Forgotten Hero: The Untold Story of The Freedom Fighter Who Avenged the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

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Preamble to the Indian Constitution

Last updated on July 26, 2024 by Alex Andrews George

This post, Preamble to the Indian Constitution, is a part of our new ambitious article series on Indian Constitution and Polity, covering all the important topics from Article 1 to Article 395.

We have already published a mega-post listing all the articles (1-395) of the Constitution of India arranged under their respective chapters and parts.

In the coming posts, we plan to elaborate on each sub-topic. Our basis of discussion will be the Constitution of India.

Each post will discuss articles taken from Constitution first.  Their explanations, questions and concepts follow in the later part of each post.

Aspirants are advised to revisit each of the coming posts time and time again, as we may update posts with current events related to the Indian Consitution.

We hope this article series greatly benefit all aspirants to prepare well for Prelims and Mains under our Prelims cum Mains Integrated approach . So let’s start well with the Preamble.

Also read: Impartiality and Non-Partisanship

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Table of Contents

The preamble to the Indian Constitution

The preamble to the Constitution of India is a brief introductory statement that sets out the guiding purpose, principles and philosophy of the constitution. The preamble gives an idea about the following: (1) the source of the constitution, (2) the nature of the Indian state (3) a statement of its objectives and (4) the date of its adoption.

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE , social, economic and political; LIBERTY  of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY  of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY  assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, DO HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

Source of the Constitution

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We, the people of India.

The phrase “We the people of India” emphasises that the constitution is made by and for the Indian people and not given to them by any outside power.

It also emphasizes the concept of popular sovereignty as laid down by Rousseau: All the power emanates from the people and the political system will be accountable and responsible to the people.

Nature of Indian state

• Sovereign: India is internally and externally sovereign – externally free from the control of any foreign power and internally, it has a free government that is directly elected by the people and makes laws that govern the people. No external power can dictate the government of India.
• Socialist: “Socialism” is an economic philosophy where means of production and distribution are owned by the State. India adopted Mixed Economy, where apart from the state, there will be private production too. Socialism as a social philosophy stresses more on societal equality.
• Secular: Features of secularism as envisaged in the Preamble is to mean that the state will have no religion of its own and all persons will be equally entitled to the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate the religion of their choice. (S R Bommai and Others v Union of India, AIR 1994 SC 1918)
• Democratic: Indicates that the Constitution has established a form of government that gets its authority from the will of the people. The rulers are elected by the people and are responsible to them.
• Republic: As opposed to a monarchy, in which the head of state is appointed on the hereditary basis for a lifetime or until he abdicates from the throne, a democratic republic is an entity in which the head of state is elected, directly or indirectly, for a fixed tenure. The President of India is elected by an electoral college for a term of five years. The post of the President Of India is not hereditary. Every citizen of India is eligible to become the President of the country.

Objectives of Indian State

• Justice: Social, Economic and Political.
• Equality: of status and opportunity.
• Liberty: of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship
• Fraternity (=Brotherhood): assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation.

Date of its adoption

The date of adoption of the Constitution is 26th November 1949.  But most of the articles in the Constitution came into force on January 26th, 1950. Those articles which came into existence on 26th November 1949 is given by Article 394.

Article 394 states that this article (394) and articles 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 60, 324, 366, 367, 379, 380, 388, 391, 392 and 393 shall come into force at once, and the remaining provisions of this Constitution shall come into force on the twenty-sixth day of January 1950, which day is referred to in this Constitution as the commencement of this Constitution.

26 January was selected for this purpose because it was this day in 1930 when the Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj) was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress.

Info Bits related to Preamble of Indian Constitution

• Who was the Calligrapher of the Indian Constitution: Prem Behari Narain Raizada (1901–1966) was the calligrapher who hand-wrote the Constitution of India.
• Who was the chief artist behind the illustration of the original Indian Constitution: Nandalal Bose took up the historic task of beautifying/decorating the original manuscript of the Constitution of India. He was assisted by his disciple Beohar Rammanohar Sinha.
• Who designed and decorated the Preamble page of the Indian Constitution: The preamble page, along with other pages of the original Constitution of India, was designed and decorated solely by renowned painter Beohar Rammanohar Sinha  of Jabalpur.
• Supreme Court of India  has, in the  Kesavananda case, recognised that the preamble may be used to interpret ambiguous areas of the constitution where differing interpretations present themselves. (In the 1995 case of Union Government Vs LIC of India also the Supreme Court has once again held that Preamble is an integral part of the Constitution.
• As originally enacted the preamble described the state as a “sovereign democratic republic”. In 1976 the Forty-second Amendment changed this by adding words socialist and secular to read “sovereign  socialist   secular  democratic republic”.

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About Alex Andrews George

Alex Andrews George is a mentor, author, and social entrepreneur. Alex is the founder of ClearIAS and one of the expert Civil Service Exam Trainers in India.

He is the author of many best-seller books like 'Important Judgments that transformed India' and 'Important Acts that transformed India'.

A trusted mentor and pioneer in online training , Alex's guidance, strategies, study-materials, and mock-exams have helped many aspirants to become IAS, IPS, and IFS officers.

Reader Interactions

January 14, 2015 at 8:17 am

Can you send me web- location where experts give their opinion on current issues?? Plz help me and plz help me how can I do online preparation ??

May 3, 2016 at 4:58 pm

“Date of adoption of the Constitution is 26th November, 1950. But most of the articles in Constitution came into force on January 26th, 1950.”

In the above statement the date of adoption of the Constitution should be 26th November 1949 and not 1950. please correct it.

May 3, 2016 at 8:31 pm

@Santhosh: Thanks for pointing out the typo. We have updated the same. Welcome more feedback like this.

March 29, 2023 at 12:13 pm

brother you should have to go through the preamble first itself,it stated that IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty six day of november,1949 do HEREBY ADOPT,ENACT AND GIVE TO OUR SELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

June 26, 2016 at 8:21 am

Intergrity is also added along with Unity in 42 amd act, 1976

October 18, 2016 at 6:22 pm

y cant u just upload lectures of these topics in youtube it is much usefel for us

July 25, 2017 at 9:53 pm

can judiciary make laws ?

November 18, 2017 at 9:20 am

No its only adjudicating body in the democratic process

January 29, 2019 at 1:15 pm

judgement passed by supreme court is itself a law.

June 11, 2024 at 10:27 am

It is the job of legislatures to make laws. Judiciary only protect our constitutional rights !

February 21, 2018 at 11:43 pm

How come Secularism in India and SR Bommai Case are related to each other,kindly explain?

February 24, 2018 at 1:28 pm

Explain the schedules of preamble

April 25, 2018 at 10:00 pm

Is it enough for upsc about preamble

June 17, 2018 at 11:36 pm

For UPSC nothing is enough the more u study the more u get closer to UPSC

September 11, 2018 at 7:21 pm

I think the decorations and artworks in the Constitution were done under the supervision of Nandlal Bose from shantiniketan. Beohar Rammonohar Sinha was among the disciples of Nandlal Bose who worked on the Constitution under the supervision of Nandlal Bose. Though Beohar Rammonohar Sinha decorated the preamble solely thus a singnature as ‘Ram’ can be seen at the bottom right corner of the preamble page.

So, it would be incorrect to say “The preamble-page, along with other pages of the original Constitution of India, was designed and decorated solely by renowned painter Beohar Rammanohar Sinha of Jabalpur”. (The solely and the other pages should be removed).

December 17, 2018 at 12:48 am

Very much useful.

March 10, 2019 at 6:33 pm

How can we aware with all general awareness on exact time ,,,if you can do anything regarding to upsc please help to online study

July 28, 2019 at 2:06 pm

The 42nd Amendment Act also added the word “INTEGRITY” as it was not in the original PREAMBLE.

November 19, 2019 at 10:45 pm

This is incorrect. The preamble does not have the word “Socialist” in it. Bjp is a socialist party and that is a different thing.

June 15, 2020 at 2:31 pm

Can you explain about Lic of India vs Union of India case

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Constitution of India History, Evolution, Features, Timeline

Indian Constitution is the lengthiest written document in the world. Know more about constitution of India history, types, evolution, making , Features, Timeline for UPSC.

Table of Contents

What is a Constitution?

A Constitution is central to the administration of the country and to the existence and functioning of a country as a politico-legal entity. They are a set of rules and regulations for a state which set out the fundamental principles by which the state is governed.

It describes the main institution of the state (Executive, Legislature & Judiciary) and the relationship between these institutions. It places limits on the exercise of power and set out the rights and duties of the citizens.

Difference Between Constitution & Law

The Constitution of a nation is the supreme law of the land whereas Law is a set of rules to govern social and government institutions, however, there is no precise definition of it.

Read about: Important Articles of Indian Constitution

Purpose of Constitution

Rule of Law: Constitution establishes the doctrine of the Rule of Law at the place of the Rule of man. It is an important feature of a democracy, as in a democracy the power lies with the people.

Doctrine of Limited Government: it ensures that there should be legal constraints on the powers of government authorities, especially with respect to the rights of the people. It checks the arbitrary decisions of the authorities by providing the citizens with Fundamental Rights and an Independent Judiciary for its protection.

Ensure Fundamental Rights to its Citizens:   As Fundamental Rights provided to the citizens ensure rule of law by limiting the arbitrary actions of the government. Hence, it provides political freedom to the citizens.

Doctrine of Separation of Power and Checks & Balance:  It ensures the division of the functions of the three organs of the constitution and each checks and balances the functioning of other organs.

Independent Judiciary : Any constitution that wants to safeguard its citizens’ rights must protect and ensure the independence of the judiciary.

Read about: Preamble of Indian Constitution

Constitution Types

The Constitution helps check the country’s legal, political and social functions in different ways. Below are the types of constitutions:

Read about: Constitution Day of India

Constitution Features

There are some important features that are typically contained in the Constitution:

Constitution of India History

In 1600, the British arrived in India as traders in the form of the East India Company (EIC). Under a Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I, the company had the exclusive rights to trading in India. Initially, they only engaged in trading and were not motivated by political gains. However, this scenario changed after their victory in the Battle of Buxar in 1764.

The company which until now was only engaged in trade gained Diwani rights (rights over revenue) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. This marked the rise of EIC as a territorial force. The company went on to administer India till 1858 when the British Crown directly assumed control of India’s affairs in the wake of the ‘ Revolt of 1857 ’. The British government went on to rule India till its independence on August 15, 1947.

India’s independence necessitated a Constitution for the country. In 1946, the Constituent Assembly was formed to draft the constitution. The Indian Constitution came into being on 26th January 1950.

Read about: 42nd Amendment of Indian Constitution

Evolution of Indian Constitution

The evolution of the Constitution of India can be traced back to various acts and policies were undertaken by the Company and the British administration. The constitution of India came into force on January 26, 1950 under Dr BR Ambedkar (Farther of the Constitution of India) and transformed the Dominion of India into the Republic of India. It had been drafted, discussed, and finalised by the Constituent Assembly between 1946 and 1949. The evolution can be studied under two broad timelines:

• The Company rule (1773-1858)
• The Crown rule (1858-1947)

Constitution of India History – Regulating Act of 1773

Due to the inefficiency of the dual system introduced by Robert Clive in 1765 British parliament considered it important to regulate the affairs of the company and passed the Regulating Act of 1773 .

It was the first step by the British parliament to regulate and control the affairs of the East India Company. It laid the foundation of centralised administration in India by making the Governors of Bombay and Madras presidencies subordinate to the Governor-General of Bengal. For the first time ever, the political and administrative functions of the company in India were officially recognised.

Constitution of India History – Pitt’s India Act of 1784

The Pitts India Act 1784 was passed by the British parliament to fix the flaws of the Regulating Act, of 1773.  It was in continuation of the policy of decentralisation of administration which began by enacting the Regulating Act, of 1773.

It introduced the system of double government. A Board of Control was created for managing political affairs and the Court of directors was entrusted with managing only the commercial affairs of the company.

Constitution of India History – Charter Act of 1793

The Charter Act of 1793 was passed by the British Parliament to renew the charter of the East India Company. This act authorised the trade monopoly of the company with India for the next 20 years.

Constitution of India History – Charter Act of 1813

The Charter Act of 1813 was passed to renew the company’s charter for another 20 years. The company’s monopoly to trade in the east was severely opposed by the local British merchants including some parliamentarians. It ended the trade monopoly of the company except for trade in tea and trade with China.

Constitution of India History – Charter Act of 1833

Centralization of the Indian administration reached its zenith after the elevation of the Governor General of Bengal as the Governor-General of India. India’s first Law commission was constituted which was responsible for drafting the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which was enacted later in 1860.

Constitution of India History – Charter Act of 1853

The Charter Act of 1853 was the last charter act passed by the British parliament. It was the first step towards the inclusion of Indians in administration and law-making. The governor-general’s Council’s legislative and executive functions were separated for the first time.

A separate Indian (Central) legislative council was constituted which included 6 members as legislative councillors. The Indian (Central) Legislative Council was like a small Parliament (along the same lines as the British Parliament).

Constitution of India History – Government of India Act, 1858

The Government of India Act, 1858 is also known as the Act of Good Government of India. The act was enacted to transfer the powers of the government, administration, revenue and territories to the British crown. Its objective was to keep the Indian Government in check. However, no substantial changes were brought in the system of Governance which prevailed in India.

Constitution of India History – Indian Councils Act 1861

Indian Councils Act 1861 marked the beginning of representative institutions by associating Indians with the law-making process.  It reversed the policy of centralisation under the Company’s rule which was started by the Regulating Act of 1773 and reached its climax under the Charter Act of 1833.

Constitution of India History – Indian Councils Act 1892

Indian Councils Act 1892 : In a very limited sense, it initiated the principle of representation. As a result, the number of Indians increased in the legislative councils. This enabled leaders like Gopal Krishna Gokhale to enter the councils and enhance political consciousness among the masses.

Constitution of India History – Indian Councils Act 1909

Indian Councils Act 1909: Also called the Minto-Morley reforms Indians were given membership in the Imperial Legislative Council for the first time. This act legalised ‘Communalism’, and Lord Minto came to be known as the Father of Communal Electorate in India.

Constitution of India History – Government of India Act 1919

The Government of India Act of 1919 was based on the recommendations of a report by Edwin Montague, the then Secretary of State for India, and Lord Chelmsford. It led to the seed for the formation of the Indian Constitution.

The Government of India Act intended to bring a completely responsible government to the British Indian provinces. Large-scale elections were also conducted for the first time in all the provinces in 1937 as per the provisions of the Act. Many of the provisions and the framework of the Indian constitution have been taken from this act, and hence, this act is also called the ‘ Mini Constitutio n’.

Constitution of India History – Indian Independence Act of 1947

The Mountbatten Plan was accepted by all parties. The INC initially opposed the partition of the country but finally accepted it as an inevitable process. The plan was accepted by both INC and the Muslim League. The proposal was given immediate effect by enacting the Indian Independence Act 1947 .

Historical Background of Indian Constitution

India is the largest democracy in the world, living and breathing in the air of sovereignty has been gifted with the lengthiest constitution of the world that consists of 448 Articles (395 originally), 25 Parts (22 originally), 12 Schedules (8 originally), 105 constitutional amendments (first was enacted in 1950).  The Story behind the making of the Indian Constitution receives a significant position in the history of India.

Government of India Act 1919: It announced that in 10 years from 1919, a royal commission will be set up to report on the working of the particular act, though the commission was appointed in 1928, even though it was to be appointed in 1929 as per the 1919 Act.

Indian Statutory Commission: Also came to known as  Simon Commission ’, was a group of seven Members of the British Parliament under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon. The commission arrived in India in 1928 to study constitutional reform in Britain’s largest and most important dominion. The purpose of this commission was to report on the working of the Indian established under the Government of India Act 1919 and to decide the political future of India.

Indians Response: The Indian National Congress along with the Muslim League boycotted the commission as a result of the protest Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State of India challenged Indian leaders to draft a Constitution for India which was accepted by the Indian leaders.

First Major Attempt: A committee was appointed with the task to draft Indian Constitution. The committee was under the leadership of Motilal Nehru with Jawaharlal Nehru as Secretary, Ali Imam, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mangal Singh, M S Aney, Subhas Chandra Bose , Shuaib Qureshi and G R Pradhan where the other members. The draft of the constitution prepared by the committee was called the Nehru Committee Report or Nehru Report . The report was submitted in the Lucknow session of the all-party conference on August 28, 1928. This was the first major attempt by Indians to draft a constitution for India.

Demand of Constituent Assembly: The seed for the formation of the constituent assembly was sown initially in 1934 by the Pioneer of the Indian Communist Leader Mahendra Nath Roy (M.N Roy). Later, in 1935, the Indian National Congress (INC) officially demanded the setting up of a   for framing the Constitution of India.

British Response: In early 1940, the British responded to the above demand and proposed August Offer this proposal included the establishment of an advisory war council, the inclusion of more Indians in administration, and recognized the right of Indians to frame their own Constitution after the end of the Second World War. The offer was, rejected by both Congress Working Committee and the Muslim League.

Cripps Mission: The Cripps Mission , headed by Sir Stafford Cripps, was sent in March 1942. It was entrusted with drafting a draft proposal on the framing of an independent constitution after the end of World War II . However, it also failed in its objective.

Cabinet Mission: In 1946, the Cabinet Mission came to India with the aim to discuss the transfer of power from the British Government to the Indian leadership, with the aim of preserving India’s unity and granting it independence.

It held discussions with representatives of British India and the Indian States to set up a Constituent body. And, also put forth a scheme for the formation of the Constituent Assembly. Based on the recommendation the Constituent Assembly was formed on December 1946.

Indian Constitution Timeline

Here is the Timeline of the formation of the Indian Constitution:

Indian Constitution Time Taken

Before the Constitution was formed, the legislations that governed the functioning of Indian provinces were the Indian Independence Act of 1947 and the Government of India Act of 1935 which were repealed after the commencement of the Constitution on 26 January 1950.

The constituent assembly was constituted on November 1946 and the first meeting of the constituent assembly was held on December 1946. Under the chairmanship of Dr. BR Ambedkar, the constituent assembly established a drafting committee to come up with a draft of the Constitution for India

It took around 11 sessions and 167 days, precisely 2 years 11 months and 18 days to prepare the final draft of the constitution with a total of 2000 amendments (approx.)

Constitution Makers of India

India under British rule had two types of territories, the British Provinces & the Princely States. The constituent assembly was formed on the basis of the population of a region, hence there was one representative for 10 lakh people.

So, there were 398 representatives from the entire country of which 296 were from the British Province and 93 were from the Princely states. Although the Princely states dint took part in the constituent assembly which left 296 members from the British provinces in the constituent assembly.

The drafting committee of the Constitution had seven members namely Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, N. Gopalaswami, B.R. Ambedkar (Chairman of the drafting committee.), K.M Munshi, Mohammad Saadulla, B.L. Mitter, D.P. Khaitan.

Note: B.L.Mitter resigned due to health issues and he was replaced by N Madhav Rau. D.P. Khaitan died in 1948 and got replaced by TT Krishnamachari.

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What constitution means?

A constitution is the rule book for a state. It sets out the fundamental principles by which the state is governed.

Who is the father of Indian Constitution?

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is known as the father of the Indian Constitution

Which is the smallest Constitution?

The Indonesian Constitution

Who is the mother of Constitution of India ?

Bhikaiji Rustom Cama

Who wrote India's first Constitution?

Prem Behari Narain Raizada was the calligrapher of the Indian Constitution. The original constitution was handwritten by him in a flowing italic style.

What is the meaning of the constitution?

They are rules and regulations on which a country is governed.

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Essay on Indian Constitution in 100, 250, and 350 words

• Updated on  
• Jan 3, 2024

The constitution of India was written and adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November 1949 but it became effective on 26th January 1950. It is a set of rules and regulations that guide the administration of the country. It is the backbone of every democratic and secular fabric of the nation. The Indian Constitution is the longest in the world and describes the framework for political principles, procedures and powers of the government. This is just a brief paragraph on the Indian constitution, we have provided samples of essay on Indian Constitution. Let’s explore them!

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Indian Constitution in 100 words
• 2 Essay on Indian Constitution in 250 words
• 3 Essay on Indian Constitution in 350 words
• 4 Indian Constitution Defines the Fundamental Rights and Duties of Indian Citizens
• 5 The Constitution Defines the Structure and Working of the Government
• 6 Conclusion

Learn more about the Making of Indian Constitution

Essay on Indian Constitution in 100 words

The Indian Constitution became effective on the 26th of January 1950 although the Constituent Assembly adopted it on the 26th of November 1949. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar headed the drafting committee that wrote it. Hence, it was the longest-written constitution of India and provides a detailed account of the fundamental rights and duties of the citizens of India. The original constitution of India is the lengthiest in the world and is hand-written and calligraphed. It is the supreme law of India that is drafted by the Constituent Assembly which is even superior to the Parliament. After the constitution came into effect, the status of India changed from “Dominion of India” to “Republic of India”. Hence, 26th January is celebrated as The Republic Day of India.

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Essay on Indian Constitution in 250 words

The Indian Constitution was drafted under the chairmanship of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who is known as the ‘Father of Indian Constitution’. It took almost 3 years to draft the same. Various aspects of the society such as economic, socio-political, etc were taken into consideration while drafting the constitution. While drafting the Indian Constitution, the drafting committee took into consideration various constitutions of other countries such as France, Japan and Britain to seek valuable insights. 

The Fundamental Rights and Duties of the Indian Citizens, the Directive Principles of State Policy and the Federal Structure of the Government of India, all were included in the Indian Constitution. Every policy, duty and right has been explained at length in the Indian Constitution hence making it the lengthiest written constitution in the world. 

There were more than 2000 amendments that had to be made to the Indian Constitution to get it approved. The same was adopted on November 26th, 1949 and was enforced on January 26th, 1950. From that day onwards, the status of India changed from “Dominion of India” to “Republic of India”. And that is why since then, 26th January is celebrated as the Republic Day. On this occasion, the National Flag of India is hoisted at various places across the nation and the National Anthem is sung to rejoice the day. There is a special day that is dedicated to the Indian Constitution known as the ‘National Constitution Day’ that came into existence in 2015. 

Also Read:- Essay on Pollution

Essay on Indian Constitution in 350 words

The Indian Constitution is the supreme document that gives a very detailed account of what the citizens of India can and also cannot do. It has been set up as a standard that needs to be followed to ensure law and order in society and also to help it develop and prosper.

Indian Constitution Defines the Fundamental Rights and Duties of Indian Citizens

The duties and the Fundamental Rights of the Indian citizens have been clearly stated and defined in the Constitution of India. The Fundamental Rights include:

• The Right to Equality
• The Right to Freedom
• The Right to Freedom of Religion
• Cultural and Educational Rights
• Right Against Exploitation
• Right to Constitutional Remedies

These are the basic rights and all the citizens across the country are entitled to the same irrespective of their colour, caste, creed, or religion.

Fundamental Duties of the Indian CItizens that are included in the Indian Constitution are:-

• Respecting the Constitution of India
• To always honour the National Anthem and the National Flag
• To protect the unity
• Preserving the heritage of the county
• Protecting the integrity and sovereignty of India
• Promoting the spirit of brotherhood
• To have compassion for living creatures
• To strive for excellence 
• To protect public property and contribute your bit to maintaining peace

These are also mentioned in detail in the Indian Constitution. 

The Constitution Defines the Structure and Working of the Government

The working of the Government as well as its structure is also mentioned in detail in the Indian Constitution.  The Indian Constitution mentions that India has a parliamentary system of government that is present at the centre as well as in states. The power to take major decisions lies with the Prime Minister and the Union Council of Ministers. The president of India on the other hand, has nominal powers.

Also Read: Essay on Human Rights

The Constitution of India was approved after several amendments by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who, along with his team of six members, was a part of the drafting committee that came up with the Indian Constitution.

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Ans: The Indian Constitution became effective on the 26th of January 1950 although the Constituent Assembly adopted it on the 26th of November 1949. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar headed the drafting committee that wrote it. Hence, it was the longest-written constitution of India and provides a detailed account of the fundamental rights and duties of the citizens of India. The original constitution of India is the lengthiest in the world and is hand-written and calligraphed. It is the supreme law of India that is drafted by the Constituent Assembly which is even superior to the Parliament. After the constitution came into effect, the status of India changed from “Dominion of India” to “Republic of India”. Hence, 26th January is celebrated as The Republic Day of India.

Ans: The constitution of India was written and adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November 1949 but it became effective on 26th January 1950. It is a set of rules and regulations that guide the administration of the country. It is the backbone of every democratic and secular fabric of the nation. The Indian Constitution is the longest in the world. And describes the framework for political principles, procedures and powers of the government.

Ans: The Indian Constitution is the supreme document that gives a very detailed account of what the citizens of India can and also cannot do. It has been set up as a standard that needs to be followed to ensure law and order in society and also to help it develop and prosper.

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Deepansh Gautam

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